Tabs Out | Kris and Tavi – Lines in Dirt

Yet another German Army project on Skrot Up, eh? It almost seems like the Bermuda-based imprint is a vanity label of sorts for GeArheads, featuring not only offshoots like Q///Q, Final Cop, and now Kris and Tavi but also German Army itself, who released their SELF-TITLED TAPE on Skrot Up back in 2013. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if it proved to be a secret GeAr headquarters, like a remote island where Bond villains set up shop. But of course German Army are the heroes here, so it’s a good island. Well, once German Army takes over the world, that is.

Peter Kris here joins Tara Tavi for some heavily treated guitar-and-voice-and-sometimes-not-voice meditations, the tracks drenched in reverb like they’re playing in an echo chamber. Think Dirty Beaches without the swagger, or James Hurley’s “Twin Peaks” tune with a little bit of self-awareness and depth. (Shut up I love “Just You” and I don’t care.) If I were going to slap a genre on it, I wouldn’t be able to choose between shoegaze and folk, because neither are right but neither are far off either. Maybe if, instead of the titular heroes in “Honey I Shrunk the Kids,” Mazzy Star got shrunk by the shrink ray and set up their gear inside a shoebox instead of spent their two hours together running from ants and bees we’d be closer. But without drums.

Still, it’s hard not to think of Peter Kris wielding an ax with “This Machine Kills Fascists” emblazoned on it. That just seems right. Except this ax is plugged into an effects board. Ol’ Woody’d be so proud.